


dream-sweet love

by starboykeith



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Married Life, Married Sheith, Older Sheith, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 23:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15873654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starboykeith/pseuds/starboykeith
Summary: Shiro's day starts as any other: with Keith in his arms.





	dream-sweet love

**Author's Note:**

> this started with me listening to 'young and beautiful' and wanting to write older sheith, then suddenly an hour later i finished this tooth-rotting sweet fic
> 
> title from my secret friend by iamx

Shiro cards his fingers through Keith’s hair. Keith’s past the point of having a few greys – it’s harder nowadays to find the black hairs. The stubble on his jaw is the colour of salt and pepper. Keith will shave it off when he wakes up; Shiro’s glad of it. Keith’s far from having a baby face, and the cut of his jaw is sharp and deserves to be seen and admired. Especially by Shiro.

He kisses that same jaw now and Keith stirs. His voice is deeper in the mornings, rough and gravelly as he murmurs, “Shiro?”

“Mm?”

“Coffee?”

Red twists around Shiro’s ankles as he brushes his teeth and then pads to the kitchen, stretching and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Hey there,” he says softly, reaching down to scratch her ears. She’s grown more affectionate in her old age, far from the vicious young stray she had been, stealing Black’s dog biscuits and hissing at Keith’s outstretched hands.

The thought of Black brings a pang to Shiro’s heart as it always does, but the ache has faded, leaving him with memories rather than pain. He makes coffee on autopilot, dumping milk and sugar in his own and leaving Keith's black. The magnet holding a polaroid of him and Keith in their Garrison days hits the floor with a crack and Shiro stoops to retrieve it, bones clicking in his knees.

“What was that?” Keith asks when Shiro brings the mugs in.

“Magnet.”

“Did it break?”

“No.”

Keith eyes him with the look of someone who has known and loved him for a lifetime. “Bad day?” he asks. There’s no sarcasm in his tone despite the early hour. Shiro summons a smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was dreaming of the Champion.” He isn’t sure how long he’s been awake, first watching Keith by just the light of his prosthetic before the room was bathed in rising sunlight, but he’d woken sweating and shaking.

“You should have woken me up.”

“It wasn’t important,” Shiro says. As Keith opens his mouth to argue, he continues, “It’s alright, anyway – the doctor said I might have disturbed sleep until my body’s used to the pills.”

He knows Keith knows this, as Keith was right beside him during the appointment, but Keith still looks stung, robbed of an opportunity to comfort Shiro in the throes of a nightmare as he had hundreds of times before.

“Wake me up next time,” Keith says, as Shiro knew he would.

“I will.” With a yawn, Shiro puts down his untouched coffee and settles back against the headboard. Keith squirms closer to him until he can both rest his head on Shiro’s chest and safely handle his own mug. “What’ve you got on today?”

“Hmm,” Keith says, “I’ve got a meeting with a student first thing. Hannah. Bit of a problem kid.”

“Sounds familiar,” Shiro says. The joke, unlike them, never gets old.

“She’ll be fine.” Keith sips his coffee. “They pass ‘em all onto me,” he adds quietly.

Shiro exhales, looking at the top of Keith’s head. “I know,” he says, not unkindly.

“All they need is someone to care,” Keith says, a long-suffering sigh escaping him. “It doesn’t have to be me, it could be anyone – they just don’t want to spare the time.”

“It isn’t fair, no.”

“I feel like I’m teaching kids that your only career as a problem child is… looking after them yourself.”

His words ring painfully true, but, “You’re so much more than that, Keith.”

“Not to them.”

Shiro squeezes Keith tighter to his side. “Maybe we could have a word,” he says for the thousandth time.

Keith laughs, and Shiro feels the rumble of it in his own chest. “No,” he says, also for the thousandth time. “I don’t trust anyone else with them.”

The breeze when it rustles through the open window is cold, the curtains fluttering. Red scurries into the room as if on cue, claws pinching holes in the thin fabric as she leaps for them. Shiro and Keith groan in unison, but neither make a move to stop her. Both because it truly is futile but also, Shiro thinks, because he’s never sure how many years of jumping and attacking she has left.

“C’mere,” Keith croons, patting the duvet covering Shiro’s thigh, and for one wild moment Shiro thinks Keith’s talking to him. Keith laughs when he tells him. “You can come here too,” he teases, leaning up for a kiss. Shiro rescues Keith’s mug with his prosthetic, setting it on the bedside table and closing his eyes as Keith kisses him in slow, soft presses of lips.

Their mouths remain closed, sparing each other from morning breath, but it feels more intimate that way, Keith’s hands on Shiro’s shoulders and Shiro’s hands on his back, pressing Keith closer. He can’t resist swiping his tongue over Keith’s bottom lip, though, and Keith pulls back with a smile in his eyes.

“Stop it, you,” he says, but he’s smiling. “My teeth are all fluffy.”

“Gross,” Shiro says, playfully pushing Keith away. When he swings his legs out of bed, Red bites his ankle and Shiro bites back a colourful swear word. Keith’s laughing.

“And how is my little angel this morning?” he asks, voice sing-song. Red abandons Shiro as soon as Keith crouches down and Shiro rolls his eyes at the betrayal.

“I’ll leave you and your _wife_ alone,” he says, retrieving his dressing gown from where it’s slung over the chair. Keith’s clean washing is piling up, but Shiro saves the reprimand for another time. He drinks his coffee in quick gulps, willing the energy to come sooner rather than later.

“Let me just take this off,” Keith says to Red, voice low and conspiratorial, and when Shiro looks, Keith’s twisting his wedding ring.

“Don’t you dare,” Shiro says, hiding his smile.

“Sweetheart,” Keith says, wide-eyed, “I would _never_.”

“Good.” Shiro ties the belt quickly, fearing Red pouncing on it. “Breakfast?”

Keith straightens up, beginning to make the bed. “Just toast.”

“Two eggs sunny-side up,” Shiro says with a smile. “Can do.”

Once he walks into the kitchen, Shiro realises he’s forgotten the mugs, but they can be washed up after breakfast. Supposing Keith remembers to bring them in. He’d remind him, but he can hear Keith brushing his teeth and doesn’t want to cause a half-intelligible shouting match.

Shiro fries eggs and bacon somewhat methodically, thinking ahead to dinner. He’s worried about Keith – he doesn’t eat enough, and while it’s true that most of his time is spent training and demonstrating physical activity, there isn’t a job in the world that would make Shiro permit Keith’s ribs showing just under his skin. Shiro’s been attempting to fatten Keith up with little success: Keith's always eaten like a bird.

“Just because you don’t want to be the only one with a beer gut,” Keith had snapped at him last time he’d brought it up. The dig had stung less than how defensive Keith got about his weight.

Shiro exhales and pushes the thought from his mind. That had been last week, and this week Keith’s been more docile in allowing Shiro to prepare their meals.

He’s glad when Keith doesn’t say anything when he enters the kitchen, just accepts his bacon and eggs and fried bread with a smile and a thank you. Shiro dishes up the same for himself and feeds his bacon fat to Red.

“Plan for today?” Keith asks with his mouth full.

“I’m off,” Shiro says with a glance to the calendar. “I was thinking of visiting Hunk. He said he’d photocopy a couple of family recipes for me.”

“That’s really sweet.” Keith’s tone is careful, clearly wishing to avoid the argument as much as Shiro does. “Tell him thank you from me.”

“Will do.”

Keith remembers to fetch the mugs in – if only when he’s halfway through washing up – and Shiro hums as he dries the dishes. “Feed Red, would you?” he asks when Keith passes him the last of the cutlery. Red’s round pleading eyes as she gazes at Shiro switch immediately to her usual sardonic appraisal as Keith crosses to the cat food cupboard.

“There you go,” Keith says quietly, stroking her as she eats. Red growls deep in her throat and Keith backs off.

“She loves you really,” Shiro says, hanging the tea towel up and leaning against the counter. “I feel the same when you steal my fries.”

Keith’s smile is more of a smirk as he advances, and he puts his hands on the counter either side of Shiro, leaning forward. “You love me really,” he says softly, and Shiro kisses him long and deep, arms going around Keith’s waist and holding him tightly.

“I do,” he says breathlessly when they pull back.

“You what?” Keith asks, smiling.

“I love you,” Shiro tells him. “And you better get going, or you’ll be late.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment if you enjoyed, and you can find me on twitter at twitter.com/starboysheith and tumblr at starboykeith.tumblr.com !


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